


this desperate hour

by ninemoons42



Series: Padmé Lives to Tell the Tale [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I made up the names of the characters played by Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen, It isn't a Star Wars thing unless there's a fight in or near a cantina, Padmé Amidala Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6665230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Padmé planned to find Mon Mothma's contact. She planned to head the Empire off at the pass. </p><p>The first task: easier said than done. The second? That might be a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this desperate hour

Two sets of hands in her hair, and the murmur of familiar voices right at her back: and this wasn’t the first time that the twins had helped Padmé with her hair, but they were running a little low on time. She threw her daughter a warning glance by way of the mirror: “Leia.”

“Done, done, done,” was the hurried answer; she turned around just in time for Luke to stick the fine-toothed comb in his own untamed mop. “We had to make sure that all of the clips matched.”

“Thank you,” Padmé said, and she pulled the bright shining mass of her hair -- now prettily tied and bound in four tails, studded with polished plain clips -- forward over her shoulder. A faint hint of salt-and-smoke scent in her hair, courtesy of the oil that her children had used to smooth the finer strands into obedience. “You two did a good job.”

She closed her eyes and smiled as Leia laughed softly. “It would have been nicer if Dormé had been able to help us.”

“Your hair is heavy, Mama,” Luke said -- but she glanced at him in the mirror and he, too, was wearing an impish smile. 

The commlink clipped to her belt chirped a warning at her, and Padmé sighed and pulled Luke and Leia close, and kissed them on the tops of their heads. “Let’s hope we don’t get shot at for this pickup,” she said as she tucked an unruly strand of hair behind Luke’s ear, as she straightened Leia’s left sleeve. “Go, go, and put your armor on. Engines hot, weapons hot. But absolutely no grand rescues unless I tell you, or unless the Force tells you.”

“Yes, Mama.” Twin voices, twin expressions of worry. 

No sooner had the twins left than there was a knock on the door to her rooms, and a familiar voice: “Padmé. Are you sure you should be doing this?”

She sighed, and got to her feet, and only winced when she was halfway to the door. “One: I’d still do this pickup were I fresh from the bacta tank,” she said. “Two: who else is there to send?” And she shimmied carefully around Obi-Wan Kenobi’s frown and crossed arms.

“In the first place, a broken leg is exactly the kind of injury you’d have to go into a bacta tank for.”

“And we have neither bacta nor time, and there is literally no one else. So it has to be me,” Padmé said as she pulled a scarf from one of her pockets and tucked it carefully into the neckline of her tunic. 

“I can do it -- I can disguise myself -- ”

“And we agreed you’d do exactly that,” she murmured as she started to head towards one of the larger cargo holds. “I cannot risk losing you, Ben.”

“Need I remind you that this close to Corellian space the bounty on your head is nearly as large as mine?” But he kept up with her strides, he followed her straight into the shuttle, and his hands were steady on the controls as they dropped away from _White Base_.

A scattered cluster of Corellian ships -- new models mixed in with new -- near and around and in the skies of a half-derelict spaceport that was little more than a broken arc of ramshackle lean-tos and three-walled shelters, and the shuttle was conspicuous for its size and for its appearance. 

“Are you going to say it, or should I,” Kenobi muttered as he pulled the hood of his light cloak up and over his face. 

“Consider it said,” Padmé said, just as nervously, and she pushed out the shuttle’s door. 

It was hard to take a deep centering breath when the whole place seemed to stink of -- fuel and bootlegged _everything_. 

Gray, gray as far as the eye could see -- the spaceport was tucked between two ridges in a cratered dustscape -- and she was grateful for the trailing length of the scarf that she could wind around the lower half of her face. 

Kenobi’s presence right at her shoulder as she pushed into one of the few actual buildings in the spaceport was a bare kind of comfort. Top-heavy, long since settled into the dust, the building still made her think of some kind of animal squatting over its haunches, as though to peer myopically at the beings trying to make their way in. An interior divided by tattered curtains into a mess of dozens of booths, none of which could rightfully be considered to be private. She could hear conversations and crude commentary; she could hear a cacophony of languages and she could only parse a bare tenth of everything that was being said and done. Rapidfire transactions and belligerent negotiations. 

Her hand crept towards the large blaster that was openly holstered at her uninjured hip.

Kenobi was crowding her right side now, and she was grateful that he was there.

Towards the scratched-up droid at the bar in the center of the room. Padmé cleared her throat. “Chandrilan ales, please,” she said, politely.

The droid clicked irritably at her. “Not here. Booth thataway.”

She stared in the direction one of its pincers was pointing, and nodded, before sliding some credits over the counter. “I’ll take a mudder’s milk.”

Beside her, Kenobi cleared his throat.

The droid slammed a grimy little shot glass onto the counter and Padmé held her breath and threw the shot back. 

It burned, going down: thick sticky sludgy _something_ that tasted like ground-up bones and brackish water. 

Kenobi sighed, and beckoned to the bartender droid, and whispered briefly: and the droid clicked at him. Polished a dust-crusted bottle on a dirty rag and handed it over.

“Thanks,” Kenobi said, and paid for his drink.

“I hope that whatever it is you’re drinking is far more pleasant than what I just had,” Padmé said as they threaded their way around another cluster of beings who were arguing and trying not to reach for their weapons.

She blinked when he handed her the bottle. “I imagine you need it more than I do.”

“What is it?” But she didn’t wait for an answer; she took the bottle and swallowed a quick sip. 

And blinked again. “ _Water_?”

“As I said, you need it more than I do.”

But Padmé only allowed herself one more swallow before passing the bottle back -- and besides, here was the signal her contact had agreed upon: a scarf checked in several shades of dark green.

Behind her, Kenobi cleared his throat. 

Padmé looked around, warily, and slid into the booth, and said: “You’ll forgive me my manners, but -- you look _even younger_ than my daughter.”

The -- girl? -- scowled and re-wound the scarf around her head. “I’m _fifteen_ , thanks for nothing, and I’m old enough to be traveling to rancor-shit-nowhere planets on my own.”

“I would make a comment about you being too young for this kind of work, but I shall restrain myself.” And Kenobi sat down at the other end of the booth. 

Padmé scrutinized her contact’s face. “Chandrilan ales.”

“Yes, they’re quite shit, aren’t they? I’d rather steal some Corellian whiskey and be done with it.” The girl rummaged in a bag that was belted to her waist, and pulled out a dented flask. After a sip, she said, “And they told me to look for the woman with the pale face. No offense, but you don’t look that pale. Are you actually my contact?”

Padmé sighed, and pulled out the data pad that Luke had modified at her express request, and passed it over. 

“Face like a mask and -- bantha fodder,” the girl said. “You’re _her_. You really are her. The woman from -- I thought you were just some kind of legend.”

Padmé attempted a smile. “If you wish to speak to a legend, he’s right next to you.”

“Really?” Kenobi asked. But he pushed a flap of his cloak aside anyway, and Padmé knew the girl could clearly see the lightsaber clipped to his belt.

“I’m -- I’m Jyn Erso,” the girl said, after a moment of gawking.

“I’m Padmé, and he’s Kenobi. What information do you have for us?” 

She watched Jyn go pale, and then stand up brusquely. “You want to talk about this, we’re going out. Not here. Too karking dangerous.”

“You’ll hear no objections from me on that front,” Kenobi said, and Padmé was glad that he was watching her back as they slipped out through one of the smaller exits.

“My ship is over there,” Jyn said.

“And ours is in the opposite direction. I was given to understand you’d be coming with us,” Kenobi said.

“I am, I will, I just have to collect the others.”

Padmé stopped and waited for Jyn to wheel around. “Others.”

“Mon -- our friend -- she sent guardians with me.”

“Who were not in the cantina.”

“I made them go back to the ship,” Jyn said. “Bartender said they were going to wind up causing a fight.”

“Because cantinas are such peaceful places,” Padmé snapped. 

“You’ll see when you meet them,” Jyn said.

Padmé sighed, and raised an eyebrow in Kenobi’s direction. “Your favorite strategy for traps, again?”

He looked unconcerned as he shrugged. 

“Hold on to that data pad,” Padmé said between gritted teeth. “And lead us to your ship.”

“I -- isn’t this thing yours?”

“We _insist_ ,” Kenobi said, and he no longer looked unconcerned: he was scowling, now, and Padmé imagined that she could feel the air growing heavy around him, though she had no way of actually touching the Force for herself.

To her credit, Jyn tucked the data pad into the same bag from which her flask had come from.

Padmé thought she could respect her, because Jyn had to know by now that the data pad was no ordinary data pad, and yet she’d decided to put it right against her body -- if Padmé triggered the thing, Jyn would need to crawl across the ground for the scattered bits of her leg -- 

“Nice ship,” Kenobi said, suddenly.

“Scrounged it up ourselves,” was Jyn’s reply.

Padmé contented herself with shaking her head because the ship resting under an awning that was more hole than cloth was -- a stubby unwieldy thing, three rectangular sections mashed haphazardly together. “I’m surprised that sort of ship has a hyperdrive.”

“So are we,” Jyn said: and then Padmé watched her put her fingers to her mouth and whistle, a piercing trilling sequence.

The freighter’s cargo hatch fell open and out came two males, mostly human, though the one with the broader shoulders and stocky build also had a crest of short upright three-sided scales on his head.

“That’s Jii-dan with the staff,” Jyn said, “and we just call the big one with the backpack Sixth, it’s all the name he’ll answer to.”

Jii-dan came to a smooth halt just a few feet away from Padmé, and offered her an abbreviated bow in greeting; Sixth just stomped past her and past Kenobi, muttering to himself.

“You’re her companions?” Padmé asked Jii-dan.

“Yes, and I also hope to be a resource to you, if we can find a way to trust each other,” was the polite reply. “I have tried my hand at designing heavy freighters, corvettes, and cruisers. Jyn tells me we might soon have some problems with much larger ships.”

“We might,” Padmé said, tightly. “And we’re talking about _very big ships_.”

“Then we should soon be on our way. I’m given to understand we should leave our ship behind.”

“I hope you’re not too attached to it,” Padmé heard Kenobi say; and she didn’t have to turn around to know that he was rolling his eyes as he said it.

“It’ll be a pleasure to leave it,” Jii-dan said, and he looked relieved.

“Then let’s get off this rock.”

Padmé passed Sixth, who seemed to be listening very intently to what Jyn was telling him, and decided to give the cantina a wide berth.

Dust, kicking up in dense clouds that rose quickly to her height and more.

“Bad feelings,” she muttered to herself, and wished she could run -- she cursed her injured hip and tried to walk faster -- 

Long low rolling roar and her mind was busy calculating the remaining distance to the shuttle. 

Acrid smoke in her nose, choking her as it mixed with the dust.

Voices rising behind her -- she considered her options, drew her blaster, turned around -- 

Forward as fast as she could -- she was running, and it _hurt_ \-- but she closed the distance to Jyn and bashed one of the armored attackers in the face with the butt of her blaster -- then she turned the weapon around as quickly as she could and squeezed off a shot right into another attacker’s throat. 

More fighting behind her -- Padmé grabbed Jyn by the back of her jacket and dragged her into the dubious shelter of a pile of crates, and now she could take a deep breath, now she could assess the battlefield.

“The others -- ” Jyn started.

“They can take care of themselves. You, on the other hand, I need to get to the shuttle _now_. Come on.”

“Are you leaving them behind?”

Padmé growled. “Don’t be absurd!” And: “Give me that data pad!”

“Whatever else you think it can do, it can’t be that important -- ”

“This data pad is important because my son turned it into a bomb,” Padmé said as she opened the back of the device to reveal a pair of small, flat thermal detonators. “Do you know who is attacking you, or why they attacked?”

“I’ve never seen them before,” was the breathless reply. “They might be bounty hunters -- ”

“Then we need to get rid of them,” Padmé said, and pried the second thermal detonator out of the pad. “Let’s go.”

Again she cursed her hip -- but she gritted her teeth and kept to a crouch, and she ignored every blaster shot that strayed her way.

“There,” Jyn said, suddenly.

Padmé peered around the broken wall that they were currently using for a shelter, and allowed herself a tight smile: the beings in a too-tight cluster, all of them armed to the teeth. She armed the detonator and threw it -- a short arc -- it bounced off a piece of shoulder armor, then went _click_ \-- 

“ _Ugh,_ ” Jyn said, with feeling.

Padmé simply ignored the falling body parts, the falling bits and pieces of armor. Blood and other bodily fluids drying into hideous shades of gray on the sand.

Sporadic blaster fire.

Padmé hobbled after Jyn -- who seemed to be heading for a second cluster of discharging weapons -- and opened her mouth to shout a warning, raised the second thermal detonator --

And suddenly Jyn was nothing more than a whirling blur of fists and feet and scarf -- Padmé smiled with bitter approval as the other woman seemed to go for every vulnerable area she could reach -- beings falling face-first into the sand -- 

“Jyn!” 

Jii-dan, Padmé thought, vaguely: she could just barely see the snapping whirling striking end of the staff that the placid-faced man had been wielding. And what she couldn’t see, she could clearly _hear_ \-- the harsh _whack-whack-whack_ of multiple impacts.

Movement behind Jyn, moaning and rising -- 

Padmé screamed: “ _Get down!_ ”

Tracking Jyn’s enemy’s movements, her hand shaking as pain rolled from her injured hip in increasingly savage waves. Padmé gritted her teeth and fired, fired, fired: three shots right in the cranial section, and another three into what she hoped was the torso. Would that be enough to get the vital organs? She had no idea -- 

“Detonator!” Jyn screamed. “Give it, now!”

Split-second decision: Padmé didn’t hesitate. The thing wasn’t armed yet. Jyn would have to do that for herself. Padmé threw -- she watched Jyn catch it and arm it and then _stuff it down her attacker’s mouth --_

“Get down,” Kenobi said, sounding irrationally calm.

A wet and squishy explosion.

“I’m only glad we’ve seen worse,” Padmé muttered.

She heard Jii-dan clear his throat -- and she saw the thoroughly disgusted look on his face, and she could sympathize.

Silence, and the sweep of the dust settling onto her boots. She turned to Kenobi. “The other one -- Sixth, I believe his name was.”

Kenobi simply hooked his thumb over his shoulder. 

Padmé looked, and raised an eyebrow. “I wondered what he was carrying in that pack of his.”

“Do you want to imagine what will happen once Luke catches sight of it?”

Padmé coughed out an adrenaline-edged laugh. “Let’s not go there.” To the others: “We need to leave.”

“No arguments here,” Jyn said.

There were no further incidents on the way to the shuttle: but Padmé looked at Kenobi’s hands, tight on the controls, and knew that they’d be getting out of the sector for a long while.

Apprehension in the others’ faces. 

“Almost there,” Kenobi said, after a moment, eyes on dark outlines ahead.

“Almost where?” Jyn asked.

Padmé keyed in the recognition sequence, and opened a secure commlink channel. “ _White Base_ , all clear,” she said, in the slow clear accent of the Royal House of Naboo.

“Copy that.” Dormé’s voice. 

“Stand down weapons. Fire up engines,” Padmé continued. “We need to get out of here.”

“We made a list of possible destinations, come on up and choose one.”

“Droll,” Sixth said, suddenly, and Padmé looked over her shoulder at him. “You call it _White Base_ because it is not white.”

“Something like that,” Kenobi said.

Padmé winced as she stepped out of the shuttle -- and there was Leia coming around the corner, one of the small field-aid kits slung around her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said, and kissed her daughter’s cheek.

“Tell us where we’re going, Mama,” Leia said, “and then we can meet in one of the big rooms.”

“Where did you have in mind?”

“Luke says we might be safe in the Anoat sector.”

Padmé nodded. “Then that’s where we’re going. Tell him to steer clear of Bespin, though.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“You weren’t kidding about having a daughter.” 

Padmé sighed, and dosed her hip with a painkiller, and looked at Jyn. “Will that be enough to make you trust me?”

“Somewhat,” was the reply -- followed by a datachip. “We’d have been able to steal more information if the flimsis had been easier to get to -- those were under several layers of biometrics, I didn’t have enough time to slice them.”

“I’ll be happy with estimates,” Padmé said.

“I didn’t bring you estimates,” Jyn said, and Padmé frowned at the complicated expression on her face.

Around her, _White Base_ groaned as it transitioned into hyperspace.

“Come on,” Kenobi said as he passed her.

A handful of displays and two or three chairs, in the small briefing room next to one of the unused bunk areas: she watched her son scramble out of his chair and offer it to her, without ever taking his eyes off what she assumed was the feed from the nav computer. It was a relief to sit down.

“Security,” Dormé said, taking the chip from Padmé’s fingers.

“Children, meet Jyn Erso, Sixth, and Jii-dan,” Kenobi said as he leaned against one of the walls. “They work with Mon Mothma.”

“I am Leia Amidala, and this is my brother Luke, and that is our friend Dormé,” Leia replied, and Padmé allowed herself a small smile at the surprise that flitted across Jyn’s and Jii-dan’s faces.

Sixth merely grunted and nodded.

“This seems safe,” Dormé said, after a moment, and then she was plugging the datachip into one of the consoles. Flicker of screens, flash of data, and then: luminous green lines. An elongated dagger of a spacecraft. 

Padmé’s throat went dry as she tried to count the weapons emplacements and failed.

“Mama,” Luke said, looking like he’d bitten into an exceedingly sour fruit. “The size of that ship -- ”

“These are just the initial blueprints,” a dismayed-looking Jii-dan said. 

“Has the Emperor gone mad?” Kenobi growled.

Padmé clenched her hands into fists as she read the label on the schematics.

_Kuat Drive Yards -- Imperial Star Destroyer_


End file.
